Posts by Alison

Each year the World Bank bring together their country representatives from around the globe to measure progress and push forward on new initiatives. ‘World Bank land’ in Washington DC becomes a bustling mini-city within a city. Even the bus stops get the messages out. My favourite this year was ‘Rich countries shouldn’t define poverty for poor countries’

Work began on this in 2013, funded by donors like DFID, USAID and Gates Foundation. It set out to become a high profile global programme that assesses countries regulatory environment for agri-business. The intention is to provide governments and others with information which will help them to make better policy and investment decisions.

Over the past four years Practical Action has been engaging with this program because we know that:

Farmers and other agri-business players are deeply affected by the enabling environment and, whatever the context, it can have a direct impact on their ability to make money from their activities. Part of this is determined by the regulatory environment, but only part. Our work highlights many more issues not covered by the EBA.

Regardless of what NGOs think of tools like the EBA, they can be influential, whether we like them or not! The World Bank’s flagship program Doing Business is in its 14th year and has been shown to shape regulation in the 190 countries that use it. So however imperfect, we recognise that this type of information is used by policy makers and investors.

Throughout the pilot phase the EBA program has had harsh criticism from a high profile campaign Our Land Our Business. This group are concerned that the EBA will “create a race-to-the-bottom between countries as they clamor for World Bank investment dollars”.

Practical Action has not joined this campaign but instead has been working closely with other INGOs like Christian Aid to engage with the EBA team to push for a stronger focus on:

Ending poverty – we’ve argued for the EBA to focus more on those aspects that will promote inclusion, i.e. benefit smallholders and others who struggle to achieve gains from agri-business, particularly women, despite their dependency on the sector for their livelihoods.

We want this ambition to move from obscurity to full visibility. A bit like these pictures I took of the World Bank building during the meetings. A big (literally!) reminder for all of the primary purpose of the World Bank.

Long-term environmental sustainability, making agricultural sectors towards fit for purpose in a changing climate. This needs to be bedded into key areas of the EBA (seeds, fertiliser, mechanisation) not sitting on its own, as a special island of optimism without regulatory teeth.

Agri-business as usual is not an option

There is global consensus that agri-business as usual is no longer an option. Kristalina Georgieva the World Bank’s CEO, opened a packed session on “The Future of Food” with a strong call for changes to a failing food system. We’re interested in how the EBA can support (as opposed to undermine) those changes to happen. The ‘Our Land our Business’ campaign is deeply concerned that it will exacerbate the failings of the food system. We are more optimistic. Over four years we’ve had some good conversations with the EBA team. However it’s been challenging for them to incorporate feedback because of their very tight data collection schedule and the limitations of the tool, because the donor mandate of the project means the focus is solely on regulation.

It is encouraging to see that in this recent progress report attention is given to both environmental sustainability and gender. The EBA team are clear that it’s still very much work in progress. They are moving the program to biennial data collection and reporting which is very positive because it means they can take some time to address the more challenging issues. This is vital if the EBA is not to skew decision-making on agriculture in the future. For the next phase of this program as they continue to develop and expand it there needs to be a clear intent to deliver:

Deeper engagement and meaningful consultation in-country – dedicated to incorporating views of agri-business and civil society as well as public actors.

More attention on inclusion and environmental sustainability – integrate them properly into the EBA so they are in the data sets and scores which will get the attention of policy makers. Make them what this is about. It’s a great opportunity for the EBA to make the shift that is needed actually happen.

It is so important for users and supporters of the EBA to take a balanced approach, given that regulation is a very small part of the picture when it comes to an effective enabling environment for agriculture. In particular the World Bank and the EBA donors should focus on delivering the SDGs by supporting wider investment in processes that will shift towards a more inclusive and sustainable agriculture.

For Practical Action that means investing in systems that rely on fewer external inputs, creating lower risk agriculture for the majority.

The ACRE team joined forces with Adam Smith International to lead a session in the Innovative Practices track called ‘Many Happy Returns – systems approaches and impact investment’. It was hugely popular, with a packed room of systems-thinkers questioning whether and how impact investment can lead to better social outcomes in systems programmes and vice versa. Both of these lenses (what systems approaches have to offer impact investors; and/or what impact investment can offer those running market development programmes) were relevant to the key questions of the session:

Can market systems programs help improve pipeline?

Does participation in programs using a systems approach help those businesses get access to capital?

Does pre-investment support lower barriers for businesses so they can graduate from grants to investment?

Expected social impacts – directly attributed to the enterprise receiving investment, and from the ‘catalytic’ effect?

MaryAnne Nguyo, ACRE’s Business Development Manager based in Africa, described how a consortium of INGOs developed an innovative syndicate model to offer investors opportunities to make ‘impact first’ investments. MaryAnn explained how Acre works and the role of INGOs using their knowledge of market systems to identify pipeline enterprises with networks, knowledge of local context and footprint being our unique strengths from an investor perspective.

Patience Samhutsa from Practical Action Zimbabwe delved deeper into how market system development work had helped their team identify businesses. Their work in the horticultural system using Participatory Market Systems Development identified key constraints and opportunities with market players, including marginalised smallholder producers. The participatory process led to a partnership with a company to design an innovative grassroots-based e-commerce platform. This was piloted with some subsidy from Practical Action. When the company were ready to commercialise the service, ACRE facilitated access to technical assistance to produce a business plan for investors.

ACRE’s has learned that pre-investment support is vital. As MaryAnne said

“Many SMEs lack appropriate growth strategies, operations plans and capacity to produce investable business plans. We draw up the needs of enterprises and provide tailored support by match-making with appropriate service providers”.

I found the discussion amongst the session participants about the potential drawbacks of subsidising technical assistance for would-be investee businesses particularly thought-provoking. PWC’s director of international development Jack Newnham and others were clear that developing a local eco-system for business development services is critical.

My reflection is we need to learn from the past. Earlier keynote speaker Jim Tanburn of DCED gave a history lesson, reminding us of the Business Development Services (BDS) era in the late 1990’s. A key principle was “the expectation that with appropriate product design, delivery and payment mechanisms, BDS can be provided on a commercial basis even for the lowest-income segment of the entrepreneurial SE sector”. In reality most practitioners discovered that creating commercial services in these challenging markets was hard to achieve and BDS provision needed to be part of a broader strategy that used other levers in the system to bring about change.

I think Acre is trying to navigate these tensions carefully: on the one hand creating opportunity by offering support (sometimes subsidised to some degree) to businesses that need it in order to access finance to grow; whilst on the other promoting and strengthening local service providers in ways that are sustainable. Practical Action finds that this balancing act makes more sense if we’re operating within a systems approach rather than “hot housing” a select business.

Adam Smith International advisor on inclusive economic growth Alexis Morcrette brought another perspective to the session. Their experience in market systems development projects in Malawi, Kenya, Sierra Leone and DRC has shown that challenges persist in making the connection between impact investors and market system projects. In Kenya’s port city of Mombasa they found businesses keen to grow and try new business models but a dearth of interested investors. Affordable working capital and patient investment for growth were in short supply.

In general though the majority in the session were keen to unpack how we can develop pipeline and increase the number of investment-ready businesses. Questions around the risks and costs of technical assistance and critically the ‘who pays?’ issue were priorities. In the short term market systems programmes may pick up the subsidy but longer term strategies need to be designed. One key area for investment is to develop the skills of facilitators and providers.

Frankie Whitwell, Windward Commodities Development Director brought home to us that currently only a handful of businesses meet impact investment criteria, and they get inundated with initiatives. I heard general amusement in the room as it became obvious that one progressive business owner in Zimbabwe was known to (i.e. ‘working’) several different programs! This chimes with what we know in ACRE – increasing the supply of investment-ready businesses is critical – and this is particularly true for an ‘impact first’ approach. With more finance and funding going into investment pots it will be important to balance that with stronger efforts to support pre-investment businesses, and strengthen the systems they are a part of, to achieve greater social impacts.

That the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been described as the ‘most inclusive process in the history of the UN’ seems worth celebrating…. even if a flip side is the daunting number of goals (17) and proposed targets. This inclusion has undoubtedly been a recognition that the scale and depth of the challenges needed extensive public, private and civil society engagement. Unlike their predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), this time round many businesses have been encouraged to have their say about what’s important and how they’ll contribute.

Focus is on big business

The guide primarily focuses on big business: supporting and guiding the world’s largest companies to respond to the SDGs and reporting their transparency in doing so. But it’s not just the Walmarts who need attention. There are millions of small and micro-enterprises who will play a vital role in delivery goods, services and opportunities in challenging environments. Will the SDG Compass Guide for Business resonate with them? Just a single reference to SMEs in a 30 page document suggests probably not, so we need to ask SDG Compass, how will they be engaged, can this initiative be expanded to include them?

Feedback

They are currently consulting widely and for now I have made these four points as feedback:

Just big business, global companies? Domestic companies, including medium, small, and micro businesses need to be involved in understanding their contribution to the SDGs at country/regional level. They and others (including governments and meso level actors) need to recognise the critical role they will play in delivering the goods, services and opportunities needed to achieve the goals.

To achieve many of the SDGs, businesses will need to be involved in investing in those technologies and knowledge and skills that will have the most benefit for people in poverty, which may not necessarily match with the most benefit to them as a company. How can they be incentivised (more carrots than sticks?), what tools and reporting will help them and others understand their contribution? This will often mean taking longer-term business development viewpoints – building markets for the future, even if they have minimal ROI in the medium term. How can they report on this as a contribution to longer-term objectives to achieve the goals?More information on Technology Justice and SDGs

No single actor will achieve much alone, as the Guide recognises in section 4 on partnerships. Tools and investment are needed for effective processes (ref 4.3 in the doc), such as multi-stakeholder platforms, that engage a broad spectrum of actors (which should include the smaller, marginalised players) and where their individual interests as actors are subsumed, regardless of their size/power, to address systemic challenges.

Businesses need tools to better understand these power-dynamics so they can be transparent about how these dynamics affect the functioning of the systems they engage in.

Have a read of the guide and why not give your feedback. But hurry… the deadline is the end of July…I nearly missed it!

Today the body responsible for scrutinising the effectiveness of UK aid money, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) , released its report on Business in Development.They’ve looked at how well DFID is working with, and through, businesses. Their assessment, announced today, is concerning. Marked as Amber/Red, it states: ‘The programme performs relatively poorly overall against ICAI’s criteria for effectiveness and value for money. Significant improvements should be made.’

It is a harsh message for DFID teams but timely for the start of a new term of office and will give some renewed focus (we hope). It also means it can’t be ‘business as usual’ if they want to achieve their goal of poverty reduction. ICAI has recommended there is a “sharper focus on the poor”. Specifically, they report that DFID’s work on business growth and investment has not been shown to translate into benefits for the poorest members in developing countries.

“The link between business engagement and reducing poverty is not always clear”

With the increasing share of the aid budget being directed towards private sector/economic development it has never been more important to get it right. ICAI flagged a problem with DFID’s ‘theory of change’; that their work with businesses has not led to benefits for the poor. The report gives DFID an opportunity to explore why that is: Should they change focus and work less with the private sector? Or should they work differently with the private sector?

So what should DFID do?

There’s strong case for the latter argument, and one that Practical Action along with other NGOs in the Bond Private Sector Group have been making since the publication of DFID’s Economic Development Strategic Framework. We believe working with the private sector is important, and have recommended that DFID focus on three aspects to help ensure their work with business benefits those who need it most:

Prioritise those sectors and systems that are the most important for large numbers of people in poverty, fragile states and crisis. In particular those which provide income or employment opportunities, or goods and services to strengthen livelihoods. Target the agricultural sectors that will deliver most opportunity, and support models of energy provision and other services, such as water and sanitation, which can best serve the poor.

A broad spectrum of the private sector needs to be included, not just the bigger players DFID tends to favour. Small and micro businesses and those operating in the informal sector are fundamentally important to economies and those in poverty are heavily dependent on them for jobs and livelihoods.

DFID needs to pay particular attention to those who are marginalised from economic opportunities and participation – particularly women and young people in poverty, and those in fragile states or crisis.

Underpinning all DFID’s work with business, regardless of sector or geography, should be environmental sustainability via promoting both the sustainable use of natural resources and climate protection.

NGOs would lack credibility if they implied there are easy answers and simple solutions. The systems and processes that determine whether business support and market development works for the poor are complex and highly context specific. That’s why it’s important to understand the actual situation of people in poverty and empower them. Whether it is access to off-grid energy, selling produce to expanding markets or paying to have waste collected, people in poverty want choices and the means to make livelihood decisions that are right for them.

Practical Action like most NGOs works through local teams and partners. Our Southern Africa Regional Director Kudzai Marovanidze talked with DFID in Harare last week about their analysis of the future opportunities for ‘inclusive growth’. In this deeply challenging context, 84% of employment is in the informal sector, mainly for women and young people. This must have big implications for DFID’s choices about where to put funds if it wants to address poverty in Zimbabwe. Mining and manufacturing sectors are unlikely to offer many of these people opportunities. So business yes, but not business as usual.

The relevance of business environments may not be the first thing that comes to mind when considering the universal development goals and targets designed to end global poverty. They will replace the MDGs, which finish in 2015, so the debate on what’s in and what’s out is gradually heading towards a conclusion. A staggering 17 goals and 169 targets are proposed, a number viewed by many as far too ambitious for countries to measure.

There is very little argument these days about whether businesses are critical in development processes. Not surprising when you consider that their combined activity eclipses both aid and government spending. But there seems to be less consensus on what approaches with business will achieve poverty outcomes. How should we shape policy and practice to ensure that when things are better for business they are better for those living in poverty? Bond’s private sector group has been looking at this question and suggests that the focus should be on the processes of change that engages and empowers small-scale business and farmers, especially women, and builds market systems to achieve lasting poverty reduction.

The problem with this suggestion is that it could reinforce the perception that NGOs are fixated on the small and the local, unable or unwilling to see the bigger picture. And it is not unreasonable to challenge whether this focus will achieve the much-needed increase in jobs and opportunities for those in poverty. Will it deliver the economic development that donors and governments want to see?

To start this blog series we offer some thoughts on three areas we think are important if we want to achieve more ‘inclusive growth’.

Firstly the actual situation of the enterprises in sectors that are important to those in poverty, like agriculture, energy, water and sanitation, should be taken into account. In these sectors there are networks of numerous micro and small enterprises operating at the so called ‘Base of the Pyramid’. Whether it’s food for rapidly urbanising populations or energy solutions for 1.3 bn people without electricity there are small businesses responding with goods and services. Often they operate at the margins, informal ‘start ups’ looking for opportunities, with the benefit of flexibility, local knowledge and connections. Creating better enabling business environments so these small players can more effectively and efficiently fulfil their roles could make the difference between the type of growth which helps people to step up and out of poverty and growth that leaves people behind.

Secondly we need approaches that can encompass the complexity of big, small and everything in between. Either/or is unhelpful. It should be both/and. A good understanding of the specific systems that are important to the poor helps in better policy and programming. Some of the challenges may be common across systems but outcomes are highly variable. Instead what is needed is investment in processes that enable key private and public actors, large, medium, small and micro, powerful and marginalised, to identify and address blockages and work together to exploit opportunities. Market system development approaches need specific attention on building the capacities of smaller players to engage as suppliers, service providers or consumers. Empowerment is important not just because of their role as economic actors but also because of the role MSEs can play in helping people in poverty build resilience and cope with shocks.

Thirdlysmall enterprises need targeted policies and interventions. This attention is justified if we consider their significant contribution to jobs and GDP, up to 60% in some developing countries like Tanzania. Economies like the UK realise this too. The UK’s Federation of Small Businesses, sees that generic policies do not work for small businesses and governments can stimulate growth by enabling the smallest firms to flourish which means more than cutting red tape. Getting that environment right for the millions of mini ‘power houses’ of growth, innovation and jobs is vital yet complex which is why it needs to move right up political and development agendas. Unfortunately this tends not to be the case. The Investing in the Business of Development report last year argued that most bilateral donor approaches were concerned with macro and meso levels but left out the micro-level which “may have a much larger redistributive impact for poor and marginalised populations”.

One reason for this lack of appropriate investment could be that in spite of decades of trying to find what works with small business it’s still a difficult one to crack. We want sustainable development solutions that reach more people but many efforts with micro and small business in the past have done neither particularly well. We know ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches are rare when it comes to the complex, dynamic systems people in poverty rely on.

It’s generally accepted that leaving economic development processes to take their own course will not result in growth that is good for those in poverty. This, as the IMF’s Christine Lagarde said at LSE recently, is a ‘big ticket item’. The Bond’s Private Sector group want to explore with others what a more equal, ‘inclusive’ growth looks like. We think it may need a better balance, towards the small. Do you?

This morning as over 90000 people gathered for Nelson Mandela’s memorial service we had our usual all-staff briefing about the week’s events… And we spent a moment to connect with this momentous event and to ‘make a noise’ in appreciation of a remarkable and inspirational man. We marked his passing with noise rather than silence, in honour of all the noise he had made over his life on behalf of the oppressed and the marginalised. We counted ourselves fortunate to have been in the world at the same time and to be working for Practical Action, an organisation that shares his passion for changing the world.

Like most of us I have spent the last few days thinking about the great man and reflecting on those incredible events around his release, journey to president and then global statesman. I was in Cape Town in 1995 working on a trade project shortly after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission began their work… the local radio was broadcasting people sharing their painful experiences, confronting what they had done and/or had done to them. It was incredibly moving and powerful, and part of the foundation Mandela was laying as he led the country through the long process of confronting and changing what had been.

Recently I saw that one of his charities is focused on dialogue and I made a connection with my own work here at Practical Action. One of our core values is ‘people first’ and so we invest in processes that will enable the marginalised to have better access to the opportunities they need and want for a better life. In our approaches, like the Participatory Market Systems Development approach, we put a strong emphasis on creating spaces for dialogue and building the trust and relationships between people. This can take time and often donor deadlines are not conducive to this type of investment, but we believe it’s a necessary foundation for change. I like to imagine that Mandela would have agreed with us.

So we have paused today and stood with South Africa and millions across the globe to give thanks for the inspiration that is Madiba.

Bright lights can both attract and blind. I have been asking myself whether Practical Action is being rather ‘moth-like’ with the bright new (to us) ‘lights’ of impact investing. We’re not the only ones. In Washington DC at the SEEP Network conference the topic of impact investing was big on the agenda. Over 500 practitioners from over 65 countries had convened to shape development practice on ‘financial and market inclusion’ so that more people living in poverty can build sustainable livelihoods. Meeting rooms were full and corridors buzzed as our collective global experience was shared and challenged.

Impact investing is not new but to many of us it’s an area we have not considered before. Its appeal is that it offers some opportunities to access a different type of finance. This is finance that will generate not just monetary returns but social or environmental returns too. It is ‘equity’ not a loan or a grant, which is means an investor ‘owns’ part of the enterprise they are putting money into. Not all impact investors are equal – some want near commercial returns, others are happy to see just part of their money back and yet others accept that in very risky and difficult situations even that may not be possible. It seems everyone, from donor governments to practitioners (us NGOs) and investors themselves want to get in on it. Donors like what it offers as they struggle to balance their squeezed aid budgets with their ambitious poverty reduction objectives, NGOs like it partly because we hope it will help us ’diversify’ our funding sources and investors seem to like it too, especially those at the ‘philanthropy’ end of the spectrum. Increasingly investors are getting interested in ‘doing good’ with their money. And of course many economies and markets in Africa and South Asia are growing faster than other parts of the world.

Practical Action is exploring how investments can be made that deliver more than benefits for one company (the one that actually receives the finance). Our interest lies in using this type of money so it is ‘catalytic’ i.e. it can have wider effects on a system. For example, our work in the vegetable market system in Zimbabwe is designed to enable thousands of farmers to benefit from stronger more resilient linkages and a better enabling environment. If one of the main processors of vegetables is struggling to get investment and business support then it can become a blockage that affects farmers. Would enabling the processor to get access to investment ‘unlock’ and begin to transform the system? This type of thinking is quite new so we’re very glad to be working with 5 other organisations* to build ACRE: Access to Capital for Rural Enterprises. We want to see how tapping into this type of finance could benefit the systems where we are facilitating change; whether the livestock sector in Bangladesh, crops in Zimbabwe or energy in Nepal we could enable key enterprises to grow so that they can provide more and better goods and services to those in poverty.

It’s challenging to get it right. From the outset we have been concerned that the brilliance of the ‘impact investing’ light will put other aspects of pro-poor market transformation into the shade. So we are working to ensure that ACRE looks at not only what an individual enterprise, however strategic, might need but that we keep a focus on all the other elements that will be important for poverty reduction. We will be bringing our expertise and experience of the past decade and using our Participatory Market Systems Development approach to have the right type of lens for this work and keep ourselves grounded in the realities of the systems that are important for those in poverty.

We’re excited to be part of the bigger SEEP global community working on these issues. The Omidyar Foundation’s recent thinking on impact investing looks spot on. They talk about impact investing needing to shift in focus “from growing individual firms to scaling entire….sectors”. We couldn’t agree more.

As we get drawn towards the bright light of impact investing we just need to make sure we’re not blind to what is around it.

Last week I was in Washington for the World Bank’s annual meetings where I heard Richard Quest of CNN interview President Jim Yong Kim about the Bank’s new strategy and their ambition to halve global poverty by 2020 to put them on track to their big goal to end extreme poverty by 2030.

World Bank’s annual meeting in Washington

Much of this progress is expected to come from economic growth and since agriculture is the foundation of many of the least developed nation’s economies it means we need to pay particular attention to how agricultural systems will be expected to ‘transform’. Practical Action knows that agriculture is critical to the rural communities who depend on it for their livelihoods and to the growing numbers of urban poor who want access to affordable and nutritious food. We have been working with colleagues in the Africa Smallholder Farmers Group to talk to teams in the World Bank and IMF about their new initiative called ‘Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture’. Last week I had opportunities to meet the teams and some of the Executive Directors in the countries where the BBA will be piloted.

Our two big ‘asks’, that the BBA focuses on the capacity needs of smallholder farmers and that it takes account of sustainability, were well received by the teams and the BBA donors we met (Gates, USAID and the Danish government). In a panel presentation I shared our view that the BBA has a flawed logic. It assumes that by improving the enabling environment around smallholder farmers then that will result in better outcomes for them and ultimately agricultural systems will be improved. We know from our on-the-ground experience that this is not the case.

I also asked the World Bank team to take another look at sustainability. Their own President has recently highlighted that sustainable agricultural systems are vitally important particularly in the context of a changing climate, more unpredictable and in some cases extreme weather. Ecosystem services that underpin agricultural production are under pressure and the BBA needs to promote and incentivise the take-up of agro-ecological farming approaches. Sustainability can’t be an ‘add-on’ to the BBA and there is a strong case to mainstream indicators on sustainability across all areas of the BBA– ultimately this will make the systems more efficient and resilient.

Torrential rain in Washington DC

Outside the World Bank building the US Capital Washington DC was struggling to function, the government in shut-down and torrential rain causing gridlock in transport systems. Yet inside I found people from different countries and agencies wanting to make things work differently in some of the most challenging situations in the globe. Transforming agricultural systems to benefit the most marginalised does not have a simple ‘roadmap’ for success. My experience last week was that there are policy makers, World Bank staff, donors and NGOs keen to work together to make this an initiative that could be part of ending poverty by 2030.

I’ll be at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank in Washington this week to talk to the team who are developing a new initiative called Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture (BBA).

The World Bank is… well, a bank… and consequently it is ‘heavy’ on economists and statisticians who for the most part prefer to deal in quantifiable measurements. With this new initiative they are hoping to set up a process that gathers information and data that can leverage positive policy change in developing countries.

The point of this is to better enable the emergence of a stronger commercial agricultural sector. They want to encourage the emergence of a stronger family farming sector through improvements in key areas such as access to finance, markets, inputs (seeds and fertilisers) land, water, rural energy and infrastructure. So far so good but is this enough to enable smallholders to develop their farming ‘enterprises’ in a sustainable way? What is missing?

Framework for an enabling environment

Vegetables grown using improved cultivation and water harvesting techniques

Practical Action has been developing a framework with others* in the Africa Smallholder Farmers Group (ASFG). It is based on a thorough review of what experts and researchers are saying is critical to enable smallholders that want to respond to the new opportunities in growing domestic markets. An important voice in the framework is our African partners’ perspectives, those who actually see and experience the effects of a ‘disabling environment’ for smallholders.

We’re hoping that this week, as we go to meet the teams and donors (DFID, Gates, USAid and the Danish government), we can share some of these perspectives. In a panel discussion I’ll be raising our concerns that the initiative has some gaps that threaten its logic.

The BBA hope that by fixing the regulatory and policy environment around smallholders it will create better conditions for smallholders to develop their farming enterprises. They will have better access to inputs, they will have stronger market links and they will enjoy better roads and bridges, which mean the costs of doing business will be lower. The growing urban populations get reliable supplies of food at reasonable prices and more money flows into the rural economy, to farmers and traders, rather than out of the country to foreign producers. Everyone wins.

It sounds plausible, attractive even, but our concern is that the vast majority of small-scale farmers, who form the backbone of agricultural systems (they contribute over 90% of Africa’s agricultural production; More than ⅔ of Africans depend on small or micro-scale farming as their primary source of livelihood and in sub-Saharan Africa, women grow 80-90% of the food), will not be in a position to benefit from this new, improved enabling environment.

We know that they need other critically important inputs which are currently not included. For example the BBA currently doesn’t include any indicators around the extension, knowledge and research that are so badly needed in farming systems. If policy makers in the agricultural ministries are getting data on almost everything but the actual position of smallholders the danger is that they will not focus their attention there. And if they leave that out then we believe it risks undermining the aims of the BBA to “improve food security, create livelihoods and raise incomes”.

The next blog will report on the meetings we have this week and expand more on our second area of concern: that the BBA doesn’t do enough on sustainability.